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FIVE DIMENSIONS OF WIN/WIN

Think Win/Win is the habit of interpersonal leadership. It involves the exercise of each of the unique human endowments—self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and independent will—in our relationships with others. It involves mutual learning, mutual influence, mutual benefits.

It takes great courage as well as consideration to create these mutual benefits, particularly if we’re interacting with others who are deeply scripted in Win/Lose.

That is why this habit involves principles of interpersonal leadership. Effective interpersonal leadership requires the vision, the proactive initiative and the security, guidance, wisdom, and power that come from principle-centered personal leadership.

The principle of Win/Win is fundamental to success in all our interactions, and it embraces five interdependent dimensions of life. It begins with character and moves toward relationships, out of which flow agreements. It is nurtured in an environment where structure and systems are based on Win/Win. And it involves process; we cannot achieve Win/Win ends with Win/Lose or Lose/Win means.

The following diagram shows how these five dimensions relate to each other.

Now let’s consider each of the five dimensions in turn.

Character

Character is the foundation of Win/Win, and everything else builds on that foundation. There are three character traits essential to the Win/Win paradigm.

INTEGRITY. We’ve already defined integrity as the value we place on ourselves. Habits 1, 2, and 3 help us develop and maintain integrity. As we clearly identify our values and proactively organize and execute around those values on a daily basis, we develop self-awareness and independent will by making and keeping meaningful promises and commitments.

There’s no way to go for a Win in our own lives if we don’t even know, in a deep sense, what constitutes a Win—what is, in fact, harmonious with our innermost values. And if we can’t make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless. We know it; others know it. They sense duplicity and become guarded. There’s no foundation of trust and Win/Win becomes an ineffective superficial technique. Integrity is the cornerstone in the foundation.

MATURITY. Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. I first learned this definition of maturity in the fall of 1955 from a marvelous professor, Hrand Saxenian, who instructed my Control class at the Harvard Business School. He taught the finest, simplest, most practical, yet profound, definition of emotional maturity I’ve ever come across—“the ability to express one’s own feelings and convictions balanced with consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others.” As a part of his doctoral research, Hrand Saxenian had developed this criterion over years of historical and direct field research. He later wrote up his original research format in its completeness with supportive reasoning and application suggestions in a Harvard Business Review article (January-February 1958). Even though it is complementary and also developmental, Hrand’s use of the word “maturity” is different from its use in the 7 Habits “Maturity Continuum,” which focuses on a growth and development process from dependency through independency to interdependency.

If you examine many of the psychological tests used for hiring, promoting, and training purposes, you will find that they are designed to evaluate this kind of maturity. Whether it’s called the ego strength/empathy balance, the self-confidence/respect for others balance, the concern for people/concern for tasks balance, “I’m okay, you’re okay” in transactional analysis language, or 9.1, 1.9, 5.5, 9.9, in management grid language—the quality sought for is the balance of what I call courage and consideration.

Respect for this quality is deeply ingrained in the theory of human interaction, management, and leadership. It is a deep embodiment of the P/PC balance. While courage may focus on getting the golden egg, consideration deals with the long-term welfare of the other stakeholders. The basic task of leadership is to increase the standard of living and the quality of life for all stakeholders.

Many people think in dichotomies, in either/or terms. They think if you’re nice, you’re not tough. But Win/Win is nice… and tough. It’s twice as tough as Win/Lose. To go for Win/Win, you not only have to be nice, you have to be courageous. You not only have to be empathic, you have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you have to be brave. To do that, to achieve that balance between courage and consideration, is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to Win/Win.

If I’m high on courage and low on consideration, how will I think? Win/Lose. I’ll be strong and ego bound. I’ll have the courage of my convictions, but I won’t be very considerate of yours.

To compensate for my lack of internal maturity and emotional strength, I might borrow strength from my position and power, or from my credentials, my seniority, my affiliations.

If I’m high on consideration and low on courage, I’ll think Lose/Win. I’ll be so considerate of your convictions and desires that I won’t have the courage to express and actualize my own.

High courage and consideration are both essential to Win/Win. It is the balance that is the mark of real maturity. If I have it, I can listen, I can empathically understand, but I can also courageously confront.

ABUNDANCE MENTALITY. The third character trait essential to Win/Win is the Abundance Mentality, the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else. The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life.

People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit—even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people—even, and sometimes especially, members of their own family or close friends and associates. It’s almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or windfall gain or has remarkable success or achievement.

Although they might verbally express happiness for others’ success, inwardly they are eating their hearts out. Their sense of worth comes from being compared, and someone else’s success, to some degree, means their failure. Only so many people can be “A” students; only one person can be “number one.” To “win” simply means to “beat.”

Often, people with a Scarcity Mentality harbor secret hopes that others might suffer misfortune—not terrible misfortune, but acceptable misfortune that would keep them “in their place.” They’re always comparing, always competing. They give their energies to possessing things or other people in order to increase their sense of worth.

They want other people to be the way they want them to be. They often want to clone them, and they surround themselves with “yes” people—people who won’t challenge them, people who are weaker than they.

It’s difficult for people with a Scarcity Mentality to be members of a complementary team. They look on differences as signs of insubordination and disloyalty.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

The Abundance Mentality takes the personal joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment of Habits 1, 2, and 3 and turns it outward, appreciating the uniqueness, the inner direction, the proactive nature of others. It recognizes the unlimited possibilities for positive interactive growth and development, creating new Third Alternatives.

Public Victory does not mean victory over other people. It means success in effective interaction that brings mutually beneficial results to everyone involved. Public Victory means working together, communicating together, making things happen together that even the same people couldn’t make happen by working independently. And Public Victory is an outgrowth of the Abundance Mentality paradigm.

A character rich in integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality has a genuineness that goes far beyond technique, or lack of it, in human interaction.

One thing I have found particularly helpful to Win/Lose people in developing a Win/Win character is to associate with some model or mentor who really thinks Win/Win. When people are deeply scripted in Win/Lose or other philosophies and regularly associate with others who are likewise scripted, they don’t have much opportunity to see and experience the Win/Win philosophy in action. So I recommend reading literature, such as the inspiring biography of Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity, and seeing movies like Chariots of Fire or plays like Les Misérables that expose you to models of Win/Win.

But remember: If we search deeply enough within ourselves—beyond the scripting, beyond the learned attitudes and behaviors—the real validation of Win/Win, as well as every other correct principle, is in our own lives.

Relationships

From the foundation of character, we build and maintain Win/Win relationships. The trust, the Emotional Bank Account, is the essence of Win/Win. Without trust, the best we can do is compromise; without trust, we lack the credibility for open, mutual learning and communication and real creativity.

But if our Emotional Bank Account is high, credibility is no longer an issue. Enough deposits have been made so that you know and I know that we deeply respect each other. We’re focused on the issues, not on personalities or positions.

Because we trust each other, we’re open. We put our cards on the table. Even though we see things differently, I know that you’re willing to listen with respect while I describe the young woman to you, and you know that I’ll treat your description of the old woman with the same respect. We’re both committed to try to understand each other’s point of view deeply and to work together for the Third Alternative, the synergistic solution, that will be a better answer for both of us.

A relationship where bank accounts are high and both parties are deeply committed to Win/Win is the ideal springboard for tremendous synergy (Habit 6). That relationship neither makes the issues any less real or important, nor eliminates the differences in perspective. But it does eliminate the negative energy normally focused on differences in personality and position and creates a positive, cooperative energy focused on thoroughly understanding the issues and resolving them in a mutually beneficial way.

But what if that kind of relationship isn’t there? What if you have to work out an agreement with someone who hasn’t even heard of Win/Win and is deeply scripted in Win/Lose or some other philosophy?

Dealing with Win/Lose is the real test of Win/Win. Rarely is Win/Win easily achieved in any circumstance. Deep issues and fundamental differences have to be dealt with. But it is much easier when both parties are aware of and committed to it and where there is a high Emotional Bank Account in the relationship.

When you’re dealing with a person who is coming from a paradigm of Win/Lose, the relationship is still the key. The place to focus is on your Circle of Influence. You make deposits into the Emotional Bank Account through genuine courtesy, respect, and appreciation for that person and for the other point of view. You stay longer in the communication process. You listen more, you listen in greater depth. You express yourself with greater courage. You aren’t reactive. You go deeper inside yourself for strength of character to be proactive. You keep hammering it out until the other person begins to realize that you genuinely want the resolution to be a real win for both of you. That very process is a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account.

And the stronger you are—the more genuine your character, the higher your level of proactivity, the more committed you really are to Win/Win—the more powerful your influence will be with that other person. This is the real test of interpersonal leadership. It goes beyond transactional leadership into transformational leadership, transforming the individuals involved as well as the relationship.

Because Win/Win is a principle people can validate in their own lives, you will be able to bring most people to a realization that they will win more of what they want by going for what you both want. But there will be a few who are so deeply embedded in the Win/Lose mentality that they just won’t think Win/Win. So remember that No Deal is always an option. Or you may occasionally choose to go for the low form of Win/Win—compromise.

It’s important to realize that not all decisions need to be Win/Win, even when the Emotional Bank Account is high. Again, the key is the relationship. If you and I worked together, for example, and you were to come to me and say, “Stephen, I know you won’t like this decision. I don’t have time to explain it to you, let alone get you involved. There’s a good possibility you’ll think it’s wrong. But will you support it?”

If you had a positive Emotional Bank Account with me, of course I’d support it. I’d hope you were right and I was wrong. I’d work to make your decision work.

But if the Emotional Bank Account weren’t there, and if I were reactive, I wouldn’t really support it. I might say I would to your face, but behind your back I wouldn’t be very enthusiastic. I wouldn’t make the investment necessary to make it succeed. “It didn’t work,” I’d say. “So what do you want me to do now?”

If I were overreactive, I might even torpedo your decision and do what I could to make sure others did too. Or I might become “maliciously obedient” and do exactly and only what you tell me to do, accepting no responsibility for results.

During the five years I lived in Great Britain, I saw that country brought twice to its knees because the train conductors were maliciously obedient in following all the rules and procedures written on paper.

An agreement means very little in letter without the character and relationship base to sustain it in spirit. So we need to approach Win/Win from a genuine desire to invest in the relationships that make it possible.

Agreements

From relationships flow the agreements that give definition and direction to Win/Win. They are sometimes called performance agreements or partnership agreements, shifting the paradigm of productive interaction from vertical to horizontal, from hovering supervision to self-supervision, from positioning to being partners in success.

Win/Win agreements cover a wide scope of interdependent interaction. We discussed one important application when we talked about delegation in the “Green and Clean” story in Habit 3. The same five elements we listed there provide the structure for Win/Win agreements between employers and employees, between independent people working together on projects, between groups of people cooperatively focused on a common objective, between companies and suppliers—between any people who need to interact to accomplish. They create an effective way to clarify and manage expectations between people involved in any interdependent endeavor.

In the Win/Win agreement, the following five elements are made very explicit:

Desired results (not methods) identify what is to be done and when.

Guidelines specify the parameters (principles, policies, etc.) within which results are to be accomplished.

Resources identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational support available to help accomplish the results.

Accountability sets up the standards of performance and the time of evaluation.

Consequences specify—good and bad, natural and logical—what does and will happen as a result of the evaluation.

These five elements give Win/Win agreements a life of their own. A clear mutual understanding and agreement up front in these areas creates a standard against which people can measure their own success.

Traditional authoritarian supervision is a Win/Lose paradigm. It’s also the result of an overdrawn Emotional Bank Account. If you don’t have trust or a common vision of desired results, you tend to hover over, check up on, and direct. Trust isn’t there, so you feel as though you have to control people.

But if the trust account is high, what is your method? Get out of their way. As long as you have an up-front Win/Win agreement and they know exactly what is expected, your role is to be a source of help and to receive their accountability reports.

It is much more ennobling to the human spirit to let people judge themselves than to judge them. And in a high trust culture, it’s much more accurate. In many cases people know in their hearts how things are going much better than the records show. Discernment is often far more accurate than either observation or measurement.

Win/Win Management Training

Several years ago, I was indirectly involved in a consulting project with a very large banking institution that had scores of branches. They wanted us to evaluate and improve their management training program, which was supported by an annual budget of $750,000. The program involved selecting college graduates and putting them through twelve two-week assignments in various departments over a six-month period of time so that they could get a general sense of the industry. They spent two weeks in commercial loans, two weeks in industrial loans, two weeks in marketing, two weeks in operations, and so forth. At the end of the six-month period, they were assigned as assistant managers in the various branch banks.

Our assignment was to evaluate the six-month formal training period. As we began, we discovered that the most difficult part of the assignment was to get a clear picture of the desired results. We asked the top executives the key hard question: “What should these people be able to do when they finish the program?” And the answers we got were vague and often contradictory.

The training program dealt with methods, not results; so we suggested that they set up a pilot training program based on a different paradigm called “learner-controlled instruction.” This was a Win/Win agreement that involved identifying specific objectives and criteria that would demonstrate their accomplishment and identifying the guidelines, resources, accountability, and consequences that would result when the objectives were met. The consequences in this case were promotion to assistant manager, where they would receive the on-the-job part of their training, and a significant increase in salary.

We had to really press to get the objectives hammered out. “What is it you want them to understand about accounting? What about marketing? What about real estate loans?” And we went down the list. They finally came up with over one hundred objectives, which we simplified, reduced, and consolidated until we came down to 39 specific behavioral objectives with criteria attached to them.

The trainees were highly motivated by both the opportunity and the increased salary to meet the criteria as soon as possible. There was a big win in it for them, and there was also a big win for the company because they would have assistant branch managers who met results-oriented criteria instead of just showing up for twelve different activity traps.

So we explained the difference between learner-controlled instruction and system-controlled instruction to the trainees. We basically said, “Here are the objectives and the criteria. Here are the resources, including learning from each other. So go to it. As soon as you meet the criteria, you will be promoted to assistant managers.”

They were finished in three-and-a-half weeks. Shifting the training paradigm had released unbelievable motivation and creativity.

As with many paradigm shifts, there was resistance. Almost all of the top executives simply wouldn’t believe it. When they were shown the evidence that the criteria had been met, they basically said, “These trainees don’t have the experience. They lack the seasoning necessary to give them the kind of judgment we want them to have as assistant branch managers.”

In talking with them later, we found that what many of them were really saying was, “We went through goat week; how come these guys don’t have to?” But of course they couldn’t put it that way. “They lack seasoning” was a much more acceptable expression.

In addition, for obvious reasons (including the $750,000 budget for a six-month program), the personnel department was upset.

So we responded, “Fair enough. Let’s develop some more objectives and attach criteria to them. But let’s stay with the paradigm of learner-controlled instruction.” We hammered out eight more objectives with very tough criteria in order to give the executives the assurance that the people were adequately prepared to be assistant branch managers and continue the on-the-job part of the training program. After participating in some of the sessions where these criteria were developed, several of the executives remarked that if the trainees could meet these tough criteria, they would be better prepared than almost any who had gone through the six-month program.

We had prepared the trainees to expect resistance. We took the additional objectives and criteria back to them and said, “Just as we expected, management wants you to accomplish some additional objectives with even tougher criteria than before. They have assured us this time that if you meet these criteria, they will make you assistant managers.”

They went to work in unbelievable ways. They went to the executives in departments such as accounting and basically said, “Sir, I am a member of this new pilot program called learner-controlled instruction, and it is my understanding that you participated in developing the objectives and the criteria.

“I have six criteria to meet in this particular department. I was able to pass three of them off with skills I gained in college; I was able to get another one out of a book; I learned the fifth one from Tom, the fellow you trained last week. I only have one criterion left to meet, and I wonder if you or someone else in the department might be able to spend a few hours with me to show me how.” So they spend half a day in a department instead of two weeks.

These trainees cooperated with each other, brainstormed with each other, and they accomplished the additional objectives in a week and a half. The six-month program was reduced to five weeks, and the results were significantly increased.

This kind of thinking can similarly affect every area of organizational life if people have the courage to explore their paradigms and to concentrate on Win/Win. I am always amazed at the results that happen, both to individuals and to organizations, when responsible, proactive, self-directing individuals are turned loose on a task.

Win/Win Performance Agreements

Creating Win/Win performance agreements requires vital paradigm shifts. The focus is on results, not methods. Most of us tend to supervise methods. We use the gofer delegation discussed in Habit 3, the methods management I used with Sandra when I asked her to take pictures of our son as he was water skiing. But Win/Win agreements focus on results, releasing tremendous individual human potential and creating greater synergy, building PC in the process instead of focusing exclusively on P.

With Win/Win accountability, people evaluate themselves. The traditional evaluation games people play are awkward and emotionally exhausting. In Win/Win, people evaluate themselves, using the criteria that they themselves helped to create up front. And if you set it up correctly, people can do that. With a Win/Win delegation agreement, even a seven-year-old boy can tell for himself how well he’s keeping the yard “green and clean.”

My best experiences in teaching university classes have come when I have created a Win/Win shared understanding of the goal up front. “This is what we’re trying to accomplish. Here are the basic requirements for an A, B, or C grade. My goal is to help every one of you get an A. Now you take what we’ve talked about and analyze it and come up with your own understanding of what you want to accomplish that is unique to you. Then let’s get together and agree on the grade you want and what you plan to do to get it.”

Management philosopher and consultant Peter Drucker recommends the use of a “manager’s letter” to capture the essence of performance agreements between managers and their employees. Following a deep and thorough discussion of expectations, guidelines and resources to make sure they are in harmony with organizational goals, the employee writes a letter to the manager that summarizes the discussion and indicates when the next performance plan or review discussion will take place.

Developing such a Win/Win performance agreement is the central activity of management. With an agreement in place, employees can manage themselves within the framework of that agreement. The manager then can serve like a pace car in a race. He can get things going and then get out of the way. His job from then on is to remove the oil spills.

When a boss becomes the first assistant to each of his subordinates, he can greatly increase his span of control. Entire levels of administration and overhead can be eliminated. Instead of supervising six or eight, such a manager can supervise twenty, thirty, fifty, or more.

In Win/Win performance agreements, consequences become the natural or logical result of performance rather than a reward or punishment arbitrarily handed out by the person in charge.

There are basically four kinds of consequences (rewards and penalties) that management or parents can control—financial, psychic, opportunity, and responsibility. Financial consequences include such things as income, stock options, allowances, or penalties. Psychic or psychological consequences include recognition, approval, respect, credibility, or the loss of them. Unless people are in a survival mode, psychic compensation is often more motivating than financial compensation. Opportunity includes training, development, perks, and other benefits. Responsibility has to do with scope and authority, either of which can be enlarged or diminished. Win/Win agreements specify consequences in one or more of those areas and the people involved know it up front. So you don’t play games. Everything is clear from the beginning.

In addition to these logical, personal consequences, it is also important to clearly identify what the natural organizational consequences are. For example, what will happen if I’m late to work, if I refuse to cooperate with others, if I don’t develop good Win/Win performance agreements with my subordinates, if I don’t hold them accountable for desired results, or if I don’t promote their professional growth and career development?


When my daughter turned 16, we set up a Win/Win agreement regarding use of the family car. We agreed that she would obey the laws of the land and that she would keep the car clean and properly maintained. We agreed that she would use the car only for responsible purposes and would serve as a cab driver for her mother and me within reason. And we also agreed that she would do all her other jobs cheerfully without being reminded. These were our wins.

We also agreed that I would provide some resources—the car, gas, and insurance. And we agreed that she would meet weekly with me, usually on Sunday afternoon, to evaluate how she was doing based on our agreement. The consequences were clear. As long as she kept her part of the agreement, she could use the car. If she didn’t keep it, she would lose the privilege until she decided to.

This Win/Win agreement set up clear expectations from the beginning on both our parts. It was a win for her—she got to use the car—and it was certainly a win for Sandra and me. Now she could handle her own transportation needs and even some of ours. We didn’t have to worry about maintaining the car or keeping it clean. And we had a built-in accountability, which meant I didn’t have to hover over her or manage her methods. Her integrity, her conscience, her power of discernment and our high Emotional Bank Account managed her infinitely better. We didn’t have to get emotionally strung out, trying to supervise her every move and coming up with punishments or rewards on the spot if she didn’t do things the way we thought she should. We had a Win/Win agreement, and it liberated us all.


Win/Win agreements are tremendously liberating. But as the product of isolated techniques, they won’t hold up. Even if you set them up in the beginning, there is no way to maintain them without personal integrity and a relationship of trust.

A true Win/Win agreement is the product of the paradigm, the character, and the relationships out of which it grows. In that context, it defines and directs the interdependent interaction for which it was created.

Systems

Win/Win can only survive in an organization when the systems support it. If you talk Win/Win but reward Win/Lose, you’ve got a losing program on your hands.

You basically get what you reward. If you want to achieve the goals and reflect the values in your mission statement, then you need to align the reward system with these goals and values. If it isn’t aligned systematically, you won’t be walking your talk. You’ll be in the situation of the manager I mentioned earlier who talked cooperation but practiced competition by creating a “Race to Bermuda” contest.


I worked for several years with a very large real estate organization in the Middle West. My first experience with this organization was at a large sales rally where over 800 sales associates gathered for the annual reward program. It was a psych-up cheerleading session, complete with high school bands and a great deal of frenzied screaming.

Out of the 800 people there, around forty received awards for top performance, such as “Most Sales,” “Greatest Volume,” “Highest Earned Commissions,” and “Most Listings.” There was a lot of hoopla—excitement, cheering, applause—around the presentation of these awards. There was no doubt that those forty people had won; but there was also the underlying awareness that 760 people had lost.

We immediately began educational and organizational development work to align the systems and structures of the organization toward the Win/Win paradigm. We involved people at a grass roots level to develop the kinds of systems that would motivate them. We also encouraged them to cooperate and synergize with each other so that as many as possible could achieve the desired results of their individually tailored performance agreements.

At the next rally one year later, there were over 1,000 sales associates present, and about 800 of them received awards. There were a few individual winners based on comparisons, but the program primarily focused on people achieving self-selected performance objectives and on groups achieving team objectives. There was no need to bring in the high school bands to artificially contrive the fanfare, the cheerleading, and the psych up. There was tremendous natural interest and excitement because people could share in each other’s happiness, and teams of sales associates could experience rewards together, including a vacation trip for the entire office.

The remarkable thing was that almost all of the 800 who received the awards that year had produced as much per person in terms of volume and profit as the previous year’s forty. The spirit of Win/Win had significantly increased the number of golden eggs and had fed the goose as well, releasing enormous human energy and talent. The resulting synergy was astounding to almost everyone involved.


Competition has its place in the marketplace or against last year’s performance—perhaps even against another office or individual where there is no particular interdependence, no need to cooperate. But cooperation in the workplace is as important to free enterprise as competition in the marketplace. The spirit of Win/Win cannot survive in an environment of competition and contests.

For Win/Win to work, the systems have to support it. The training system, the planning system, the communication system, the budgeting system, the information system, the compensation system—all have to be based on the principle of Win/Win.


I did some consulting for another company that wanted training for their people in human relations. The underlying assumption was that the problem was the people.

The president said, “Go into any store you want and see how they treat you. They’re just order takers. They don’t understand how to get close to the customers. They don’t know the product, and they don’t have the knowledge and the skill in the sales process necessary to create a marriage between the product and the need.”

So I went to the various stores. And he was right. But that still didn’t answer the question in my mind: What caused the attitude?

“Look, we’re on top of the problem,” the president said. “We have department heads out there setting a great example. We’ve told them their job is two-thirds selling and one-third management, and they’re outselling everybody. We just want you to provide some training for the salespeople.”

Those words raised a red flag. “Let’s get some more data,” I said.

He didn’t like that. He “knew” what the problem was, and he wanted to get on with training. But I persisted, and within two days we uncovered the real problem. Because of the job definition and the compensation system, the managers were “creaming.” They’d stand behind the cash register and cream all the business during the slow times. Half the time in retail is slow and the other half is frantic. So the managers would give all the dirty jobs—inventory control, stock work, and cleaning—to the salespeople. And they would stand behind the registers and cream. That’s why the department heads were tops in sales.

So we changed one system—the compensation system—and the problem was corrected overnight. We set up a system whereby the managers only made money when their salespeople made money. We overlapped the needs and goals of the managers with the needs and goals of the salespeople. And the need for human relations training suddenly disappeared. The key was developing a true Win/Win reward system.


In another instance, I worked with a manager in a company that required formal performance evaluations. He was frustrated over the evaluation rating he had given a particular manager. “He deserved a three,” he said, “but I had to give him a one” (which meant superior, promotable).

“What did you give him a one for?” I asked.

“He gets the numbers,” was his reply.

“So why do you think he deserves a three?”

“It’s the way he gets them. He neglects people; he runs over them. He’s a troublemaker.”

“It sounds like he’s totally focused on P—on production. And that’s what he’s being rewarded for. But what would happen if you talked with him about the problem, if you helped him understand the importance of PC?”

He said he had done so, with no effect.

“Then what if you set up a Win/Win contract with him where you both agreed that two-thirds of his compensation would come from P—from the numbers—and the other one-third would come from PC—how other people perceive him, what kind of leader, people builder, team builder he is?”

“Now that would get his attention,” he replied.


So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.

As people really learn to think Win/Win, they can set up the systems to create and reinforce it. They can transform unnecessarily competitive situations to cooperative ones and can powerfully impact their effectiveness by building both P and PC.

In business, executives can align their systems to create teams of highly productive people working together to compete against external standards of performance. In education, teachers can set up grading systems based on an individual’s performance in the context of agreed upon criteria and can encourage students to cooperate in productive ways to help each other learn and achieve. In families, parents can shift the focus from competition with each other to cooperation. In activities such as bowling, for example, they can keep a family score and try to beat a previous one. They can set up home responsibilities with Win/Win agreements that eliminate constant nagging and enable parents to do the things only they can do.

A friend once shared with me a cartoon he’d seen of two children talking to each other. “If mommy doesn’t get us up soon,” one was saying, “we’re going to be late for school.” These words brought forcibly to his attention the nature of the problems created when families are not organized on a responsible Win/Win basis.

Win/Win puts the responsibility on the individual for accomplishing specified results within clear guidelines and available resources. It makes a person accountable to perform and evaluate the results and provides consequences as a natural result of performance. And Win/Win systems create the environment which supports and reinforces the Win/Win performance agreements.

Processes

There’s no way to achieve Win/Win ends with Win/Lose or Lose/Win means. You can’t say, “You’re going to think Win/Win, whether you like it or not.” So the question becomes how to arrive at a Win/Win solution.

Roger Fisher and William Ury, two Harvard law professors, have done some outstanding work in what they call the “principled” approach versus the “positional” approach to bargaining in their tremendously useful and insightful book, Getting to Yes. Although the words Win/Win are not used, the spirit and underlying philosophy of the book are in harmony with the Win/Win approach.

They suggest that the essence of principled negotiation is to separate the person from the problem, to focus on interests and not on positions, to invent options for mutual gain, and to insist on objective criteria—some external standard or principle that both parties can buy into.

In my own work with various people and organizations seeking Win/Win solutions, I suggest that they become involved in the following four-step process:

First, see the problem from the other point of view. Really seek to understand and to give expression to the needs and concerns of the other party as well as or better than they can themselves.

Second, identify the key issues and concerns (not positions) involved.

Third, determine what results would constitute a fully acceptable solution.

And fourth, identify possible new options to achieve those results.

Habits 5 and 6 deal directly with two of the elements of this process, and we will go into those in depth in the next two chapters.

But at this juncture, let me point out the highly interrelated nature of the process of Win/Win with the essence of Win/Win itself. You can only achieve Win/Win solutions with Win/Win processes—the end and the means are the same.

Win/Win is not a personality technique. It’s a total paradigm of human interaction. It comes from a character of integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality. It grows out of high-trust relationships. It is embodied in agreements that effectively clarify and manage expectations as well as accomplishment. It thrives in supportive systems. And it is achieved through the process we are now prepared to more fully examine in Habits 5 and 6.

APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS:

Think about an upcoming interaction wherein you will be attempting to reach an agreement or negotiate a solution. Commit to maintain a balance between courage and consideration. Make a list of obstacles that keep you from applying the Win/Win paradigm more frequently. Determine what could be done within your Circle of Influence to eliminate some of those obstacles. Select a specific relationship where you would like to develop a Win/Win agreement. Try to put yourself in the other person’s place, and write down explicitly how you think that person sees the solution. Then list, from your own perspective, what results would constitute a Win for you. Approach the other person and ask if he or she would be willing to communicate until you reach a point of agreement and mutually beneficial solution. Identify three key relationships in your life. Give some indication of what you feel the balance is in each of the Emotional Bank Accounts. Write down some specific ways you could make deposits in each account. Deeply consider your own scripting. Is it Win/Lose? How does that scripting affect your interactions with other people? Can you identify the main source of that script? Determine whether or not those scripts serve well in your current reality. Try to identify a model of Win/Win thinking who, even in hard situations, really seeks mutual benefit. Determine now to more closely watch and learn from this person’s example.
HABIT 5:

SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD PRINCIPLES OF EMPATHIC COMMUNICATION

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.

PASCAL

Suppose you’ve been having trouble with your eyes and you decide to go to an optometrist for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you.

“Put these on,” he says. “I’ve worn this pair of glasses for ten years now and they’ve really helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can wear these.”

So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse.

“This is terrible!” you exclaim. “I can’t see a thing!”

“Well, what’s wrong?” he asks. “They work great for me. Try harder.”

“I am trying,” you insist. “Everything is a blur.”

“Well, what’s the matter with you? Think positively.”

“Okay. I positively can’t see a thing.”

“Boy, are you ungrateful!” he chides. “And after all I’ve done to help you!”

What are the chances you’d go back to that optometrist the next time you needed help? Not very good, I would imagine. You don’t have much confidence in someone who doesn’t diagnose before he or she prescribes.

But how often do we diagnose before we prescribe in communication?


“Come on, honey, tell me how you feel. I know it’s hard, but I’ll try to understand.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mom. You’d think it was stupid.”

“Of course I wouldn’t! You can tell me. Honey, no one cares for you as much as I do. I’m only interested in your welfare. What’s making you so unhappy?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Come on, honey. What is it?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I just don’t like school anymore.”

“What?” you respond incredulously. “What do you mean you don’t like school? And after all the sacrifices we’ve made for your education! Education is the foundation of your future. If you’d apply yourself like your older sister does, you’d do better and then you’d like school. Time and time again, we’ve told you to settle down. You’ve got the ability, but you just don’t apply yourself. Try harder. Get a positive attitude about it.”

Pause.

“Now go ahead. Tell me how you feel.”


We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.

If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication.

CHARACTER AND COMMUNICATION

Right now, you’re reading a book I’ve written. Reading and writing are both forms of communication. So are speaking and listening. In fact, those are the four basic types of communication. And think of all the hours you spend doing at least one of those four things. The ability to do them well is absolutely critical to your effectiveness.

Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You’ve spent years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that individual’s own frame of reference?

Comparatively few people have had any training in listening at all. And, for the most part, their training has been in the Personality Ethic of technique, truncated from the character base and the relationship base absolutely vital to authentic understanding of another person.

If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me—your spouse, your child, your neighbor, your boss, your coworker, your friend—you first need to understand me. And you can’t do that with technique alone. If I sense you’re using some technique, I sense duplicity, manipulation. I wonder why you’re doing it, what your motives are. And I don’t feel safe enough to open myself up to you.

The real key to your influence with me is your example, your actual conduct. Your example flows naturally out of your character, or the kind of person you truly are—not what others say you are or what you may want me to think you are. It is evident in how I actually experience you.

Your character is constantly radiating, communicating. From it, in the long run, I come to instinctively trust or distrust you and your efforts with me.

If your life runs hot and cold, if you’re both caustic and kind, and, above all, if your private performance doesn’t square with your public performance, it’s very hard for me to open up with you. Then, as much as I may want and even need to receive your love and influence, I don’t feel safe enough to expose my opinions and experiences and my tender feelings. Who knows what will happen?

But unless I open up with you, unless you understand me and my unique situation and feelings, you won’t know how to advise or counsel me. What you say is good and fine, but it doesn’t quite pertain to me.

You may say you care about and appreciate me. I desperately want to believe that. But how can you appreciate me when you don’t even understand me? All I have are your words, and I can’t trust words.

I’m too angry and defensive—perhaps too guilty and afraid—to be influenced, even though inside I know I need what you could tell me.

Unless you’re influenced by my uniqueness, I’m not going to be influenced by your advice. So if you want to be really effective in the habit of interpersonal communication, you cannot do it with technique alone. You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust. And you have to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that create a commerce between hearts.

EMPATHIC LISTENING

“Seek first to understand” involves a very deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.

“Oh, I know exactly how you feel!”

“I went through the very same thing. Let me tell you about my experience.”

They’re constantly projecting their own home movies onto other people’s behavior. They prescribe their own glasses for everyone with whom they interact.

If they have a problem with someone—a son, a daughter, a spouse, an employee—their attitude is, “That person just doesn’t understand.”


A father once told me, “I can’t understand my kid. He just won’t listen to me at all.”

“Let me restate what you just said,” I replied. “You don’t understand your son because he won’t listen to you?”

“That’s right,” he replied.

“Let me try again,” I said. “You don’t understand your son because he won’t listen to you?”

“That’s what I said,” he impatiently replied.

“I thought that to understand another person, you needed to listen to him,” I suggested.

“Oh!” he said. There was a long pause. “Oh!” he said again, as the light began to dawn. “Oh, yeah! But I do understand him. I know what he’s going through. I went through the same thing myself. I guess what I don’t understand is why he won’t listen to me.”

This man didn’t have the vaguest idea of what was really going on inside his boy’s head. He looked into his own head and thought he saw the world, including his boy.


That’s the case with so many of us. We’re filled with our own rightness, our own autobiography. We want to be understood. Our conversations become collective monologues, and we never really understand what’s going on inside another human being.

When another person speaks, we’re usually “listening” at one of four levels. We may be ignoring another person, not really listening at all. We may practice pretending. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.” We may practice selective listening, hearing only certain parts of the conversation. We often do this when we’re listening to the constant chatter of a preschool child. Or we may even practice attentive listening, paying attention and focusing energy on the words that are being said. But very few of us ever practice the fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening.

When I say empathic listening, I am not referring to the techniques of “active” listening or “reflective” listening, which basically involve mimicking what another person says. That kind of listening is skill-based, truncated from character and relationships, and often insults those “listened” to in such a way. It is also essentially autobiographical. If you practice those techniques, you may not project your autobiography in the actual interaction, but your motive in listening is autobiographical. You listen with reflective skills, but you listen with intent to reply, to control, to manipulate.

When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand. I mean seeking first to understand, to really understand. It’s an entirely different paradigm.

Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of agreement, a form of judgment. And it is sometimes the more appropriate emotion and response. But people often feed on sympathy. It makes them dependent. The essence of empathic listening is not that you agree with someone; it’s that you fully, deeply, understand that person, emotionally as well as intellectually.

Empathic listening involves much more than registering, reflecting, or even understanding the words that are said. Communications experts estimate, in fact, that only 10 percent of our communication is represented by the words we say. Another 30 percent is represented by our sounds, and 60 percent by our body language. In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior. You use your right brain as well as your left. You sense, you intuit, you feel.

Empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with. Instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thoughts, feelings, motives and interpretation, you’re dealing with the reality inside another person’s head and heart. You’re listening to understand. You’re focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.

In addition, empathic listening is the key to making deposits in Emotional Bank Accounts, because nothing you do is a deposit unless the other person perceives it as such. You can work your fingers to the bone to make a deposit, only to have it turn into a withdrawal when a person regards your efforts as manipulative, self-serving, intimidating, or condescending because you don’t understand what really matters to him.

Empathic listening is, in and of itself, a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account. It’s deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person “psychological air.”

If all the air were suddenly sucked out of the room you’re in right now, what would happen to your interest in this book? You wouldn’t care about the book; you wouldn’t care about anything except getting air. Survival would be your only motivation.

But now that you have air, it doesn’t motivate you. This is one of the greatest insights in the field of human motivation: Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival—to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.

When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.

This need for psychological air impacts communication in every area of life.


I taught this concept at a seminar in Chicago one time, and I instructed the participants to practice empathic listening during the evening. The next morning, a man came up to me almost bursting with news.

“Let me tell you what happened last night,” he said. “I was trying to close a big commercial real estate deal while I was here in Chicago. I met with the principals, their attorneys, and another real estate agent who had just been brought in with an alternative proposal.

“It looked as if I were going to lose the deal. I had been working on this deal for over six months and, in a very real sense, all my eggs were in this one basket. All of them. I panicked. I did everything I could—I pulled out all the stops—I used every sales technique I could. The final stop was to say, ‘Could we delay this decision just a little longer?’ But the momentum was so strong and they were so disgusted by having this thing go on so long, it was obvious they were going to close.

“So I said to myself, ‘Well, why not try it? Why not practice what I learned today and seek first to understand, then to be understood? I’ve got nothing to lose.’

“I just said to the man, ‘Let me see if I really understand what your position is and what your concerns about my recommendations really are. When you feel I understand them, then we’ll see whether my proposal has any relevance or not.’

“I really tried to put myself in his shoes. I tried to verbalize his needs and concerns, and he began to open up.

“The more I sensed and expressed the things he was worried about, the results he anticipated, the more he opened up.

“Finally, in the middle of our conversation, he stood up, walked over to the phone, and dialed his wife. Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said, ‘You’ve got the deal.’

“I was totally dumbfounded,” he told me. “I still am this morning.”

He had made a huge deposit in the Emotional Bank Account by giving the man psychological air. When it comes right down to it, other things being relatively equal, the human dynamic is more important than the technical dimensions of the deal.


Seeking first to understand, diagnosing before you prescribe, is hard. It’s so much easier in the short run to hand someone a pair of glasses that have fit you so well these many years.

But in the long run, it severely depletes both P and PC. You can’t achieve maximum interdependent production from an inaccurate understanding of where other people are coming from. And you can’t have interpersonal PC—high Emotional Bank Accounts—if the people you relate with don’t really feel understood.

Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal of security to go into a deep listening experience because you open yourself up to be influenced. You become vulnerable. It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have to really understand.

That’s why Habits 1, 2, and 3 are so foundational. They give you the changeless inner core, the principle center, from which you can handle the more outward vulnerability with peace and strength.

DIAGNOSE BEFORE YOU PRESCRIBE

Although it’s risky and hard, seek first to understand, or diagnose before you prescribe, is a correct principle manifest in many areas of life. It’s the mark of all true professionals. It’s critical for the optometrist, it’s critical for the physician. You wouldn’t have any confidence in a doctor’s prescription unless you had confidence in the diagnosis.


When our daughter Jenny was only two months old, she was sick one Saturday, the day of a football game in our community that dominated the consciousness of almost everyone. It was an important game—some 60,000 people were there. Sandra and I would like to have gone, but we didn’t want to leave little Jenny. Her vomiting and diarrhea had us concerned.

The doctor was at that game. He wasn’t our personal physician, but he was the one on call. When Jenny’s situation got worse, we decided we needed some medical advice.

Sandra dialed the stadium and had him paged. It was right at a critical time in the game, and she could sense an officious tone in his voice. “Yes?” he said briskly. “What is it?”

“This is Mrs. Covey, Doctor, and we’re concerned about our daughter, Jenny.”

“What’s the situation?” he asked.

Sandra described the symptoms, and he said, “Okay. I’ll call in a prescription. Which is your pharmacy?”

When she hung up, Sandra felt that in her rush she hadn’t really given him full data, but that what she had told him was adequate.

“Do you think he realizes that Jenny is just a newborn?” I asked her.

“I’m sure he does,” Sandra replied.

“But he’s not our doctor. He’s never even treated her.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure he knows.”

“Are you willing to give her the medicine unless you’re absolutely sure he knows?”

Sandra was silent. “What are we going to do?” she finally said.

“Call him back,” I said.

“You call him back,” Sandra replied.

So I did. He was paged out of the game once again. “Doctor,” I said, “when you called in that prescription, did you realize that Jenny is just two months old?”

“No!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t realize that. It’s good you called me back. I’ll change the prescription immediately.”


If you don’t have confidence in the diagnosis, you won’t have confidence in the prescription.

This principle is also true in sales. An effective sales person first seeks to understand the needs, the concerns, the situation of the customer. The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems. It’s a totally different approach. The professional learns how to diagnose, how to understand. He also learns how to relate people’s needs to his products and services. And he has to have the integrity to say, “My product or service will not meet that need” if it will not.

Diagnosing before you prescribe is also fundamental to law. The professional lawyer first gathers the facts to understand the situation, to understand the laws and precedents, before preparing a case. A good lawyer almost writes the opposing attorney’s case before he writes his own.

It’s also true in product design. Can you imagine someone in a company saying, “This consumer research stuff is for the birds. Let’s design products.” In other words, forget understanding the consumer’s buying habits and motives—just design products. It would never work.

A good engineer will understand the forces, the stresses at work, before designing the bridge. A good teacher will assess the class before teaching. A good student will understand before he applies. A good parent will understand before evaluating or judging. The key to good judgment is understanding. By judging first, a person will never fully understand.

Seek first to understand is a correct principle evident in all areas of life. It’s a generic, common denominator principle, but it has its greatest power in the area of interpersonal relations.

FOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL RESPONSES

Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways. We evaluate—we either agree or disagree; we probe—we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise—we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret—we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.

These responses come naturally to us. We are deeply scripted in them; we live around models of them all the time. But how do they affect our ability to really understand?

If I’m trying to communicate with my son, can he feel free to open himself up to me when I evaluate everything he says before he really explains it? Am I giving him psychological air?

And how does he feel when I probe? Probing is playing twenty questions. It’s autobiographical, it controls, and it invades. It’s also logical, and the language of logic is different from the language of sentiment and emotion. You can play twenty questions all day and not find out what’s important to someone. Constant probing is one of the main reasons parents do not get close to their children.

“How’s it going, Son?”

“Fine.”

“Well, what’s been happening lately?”

“Nothing.”

“So what’s exciting in school?”

“Not much.”

“And what are your plans for the weekend?”

“I don’t know.”

You can’t get him off the phone talking with his friends, but all he gives you is one- and two-word answers. Your house is a motel where he eats and sleeps, but he never shares, never opens up.

And when you think about it, honestly, why should he, if every time he does open up his soft underbelly, you elephant stomp it with autobiographical advice and “I told you so’s.”

We are so deeply scripted in these responses that we don’t even realize when we use them. I have taught this concept to thousands of people in seminars across the country, and it never fails to shock them deeply as we role-play empathic listening situations and they finally begin to listen to their own typical responses. But as they begin to see how they normally respond and learn how to listen with empathy, they can see the dramatic results in communication. To many, seek first to understand becomes the most exciting, the most immediately applicable, of all the Seven Habits.

Let’s take a look at what well might be a typical communication between a father and his teenage son. Look at the father’s words in terms of the four different responses we have just described.


“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!”

“What’s the matter, Son?” (probing).

“It’s totally impractical. I don’t get a thing out of it.”

“Well, you just can’t see the benefits yet, Son. I felt the same way when I was your age. I remember thinking what a waste some of the classes were. But those classes turned out to be the most helpful to me later on. Just hang in there. Give it some time” (advising).

“I’ve given it ten years of my life! Can you tell me what good ‘x plus y’ is going to be to me as an auto mechanic?”

“An auto mechanic? You’ve got to be kidding” (evaluating).

“No, I’m not. Look at Joe. He’s quit school. He’s working on cars. And he’s making lots of money. Now that’s practical.”

“It may look that way now. But several years down the road, Joe’s going to wish he’d stayed in school. You don’t want to be an auto mechanic. You need an education to prepare you for something better than that” (advising).

“I don’t know. Joe’s got a pretty good set up.”

“Look, Son, have you really tried?” (probing, evaluating).

“I’ve been in high school two years now. Sure I’ve tried. It’s just a waste.”

“That’s a highly respected school, Son. Give them a little credit” (advising, evaluating).

“Well, the other guys feel the same way I do.”

“Do you realize how many sacrifices your mother and I have made to get you where you are? You can’t quit when you’ve come this far” (evaluating).

“I know you’ve sacrificed, Dad. But it’s just not worth it.”

“Look, maybe if you spent more time doing your homework and less time in front of TV…” (advising, evaluating).

“Look, Dad. It’s just no good. Oh… never mind! I don’t want to talk about this anyway.”


Obviously, his father was well intended. Obviously, he wanted to help. But did he even begin to really understand?

Let’s look more carefully at the son—not just his words, but his thoughts and feelings (expressed parenthetically below) and the possible effect of some of his dad’s autobiographical responses.


“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!” (I want to talk with you, to get your attention.)

“What’s the matter, Son?” (You’re interested! Good!)

“It’s totally impractical. I don’t get a thing out of it.” (I’ve got a problem with school, and I feel just terrible.)

“Well, you just can’t see the benefits yet, Son. I felt the same way when I was your age.” (Oh, no! Here comes Chapter three of Dad’s autobiography. This isn’t what I want to talk about. I don’t really care how many miles he had to trudge through the snow to school without any boots. I want to get to the problem.) “I remember thinking what a waste some of the classes were. But those classes turned out to be the most helpful to me later on. Just hang in there. Give it some time.” (Time won’t solve my problem. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could just spit it out.)

“I’ve given it ten years of my life! Can you tell me what good ‘x plus y’ is going to do me as an auto mechanic?”

“An auto mechanic? You’ve got to be kidding.” (He wouldn’t like me if I were an auto mechanic. He wouldn’t like me if I didn’t finish school. I have to justify what I said.)

“No, I’m not. Look at Joe. He’s quit school. He’s working on cars. And he’s making lots of money. Now that’s practical.”

“It may look that way now. But several years down the road, Joe’s going to wish he’d stayed in school.” (Oh, boy! Here comes lecture number sixteen on the value of an education.) “You don’t want to be an auto mechanic.” (How do you know that, Dad? Do you really have any idea what I want?) “You need an education to prepare you for something better than that.”

“I don’t know. Joe’s got a pretty good set up.” (He’s not a failure. He didn’t finish school and he’s not a failure.)

“Look, Son, have you really tried?” (We’re beating around the bush, Dad. If you’d just listen, I really need to talk to you about something important.)

“I’ve been in high school two years now. Sure I’ve tried. It’s just a waste.”

“That’s a highly respected school, Son. Give them a little credit.” (Oh, great. Now we’re talking credibility. I wish I could talk about what I want to talk about.)

“Well, the other guys feel the same way I do.” (I have some credibility, too. I’m not a moron.)

“Do you realize how many sacrifices your mother and I have made to get you where you are?” (Uh-oh, here comes the guilt trip. Maybe I am a moron. The school’s great, Mom and Dad are great, and I’m a moron.) “You can’t quit when you’ve come this far.”

“I know you’ve sacrificed, Dad. But it’s just not worth it.” (You just don’t understand.)

“Look, maybe if you spent more time doing your homework and less time in front of the TV…” (That’s not the problem, Dad! That’s not it at all! I’ll never be able to tell you. I was dumb to try.)

“Look, Dad. It’s just no good. Oh… never mind! I don’t want to talk about this anyway.”


Can you see how limited we are when we try to understand another person on the basis of words alone, especially when we’re looking at that person through our own glasses? Can you see how limiting our autobiographical responses are to a person who is genuinely trying to get us to understand his autobiography?

You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it, until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathic listening skills to do it.

The skills, the tip of the iceberg of empathic listening, involve four developmental stages.

The first and least effective is to mimic content. This is the skill taught in “active” or “reflective” listening. Without the character and relationship base, it is often insulting to people and causes them to close up. It is, however, a first stage skill because it at least causes you to listen to what’s being said.

Mimicking content is easy. You just listen to the words that come out of someone’s mouth and you repeat them. You’re hardly even using your brain at all.

“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!”

“You’ve had it. You think school is for the birds.”

You have essentially repeated back the content of what was being said. You haven’t evaluated or probed or advised or interpreted. You’ve at least showed you’re paying attention to his words. But to understand, you want to do more.

The second stage of empathic listening is to rephrase the content. It’s a little more effective, but it’s still limited to the verbal communication.

“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!”

“You don’t want to go to school anymore.”

This time, you’ve put his meaning into your own words. Now you’re thinking about what he said, mostly with the left side, the reasoning, logical side of the brain.

The third stage brings your right brain into operation. You reflect feeling.

“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!”

“You’re feeling really frustrated.”

Now you’re not paying as much attention to what he’s saying as you are to the way he feels about what he’s saying. The fourth stage includes both the second and the third. You rephrase the content and reflect the feeling.

“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!”

“You’re really frustrated about school.”

Frustration is the feeling; school is the content. You’re using both sides of your brain to understand both sides of his communication.

Now, what happens when you use fourth stage empathic listening skills is really incredible. As you authentically seek to understand, as you rephrase content and reflect feeling, you give him psychological air. You also help him work through his own thoughts and feelings. As he grows in his confidence of your sincere desire to really listen and understand, the barrier between what’s going on inside him and what’s actually being communicated to you disappears. It opens a soul-to-soul flow. He’s not thinking and feeling one thing and communicating another. He begins to trust you with his innermost tender feelings and thoughts.


“Boy, Dad, I’ve had it! School is for the birds!” (I want to talk with you, to get your attention.)

“You’re really frustrated about school.” (That’s right! That’s how I feel.)

“I sure am. It’s totally impractical. I’m not getting a thing out of it.”

“You feel like school’s not doing you any good.” (Let me think—is that what I mean?)

“Well, yeah. I’m just not learning anything that’s going to help me. I mean, look at Joe. He’s dropped out of school and he’s working on cars. He’s making money. Now that’s practical.”

“You feel that Joe really has the right idea.” (Well….)

“Well, I guess he does in a way. He’s really making money now. But in a few years, I bet he’ll probably be ticked off at himself.”

“You think Joe’s going to feel he made the wrong decision.”

“He’s got to. Just look at what he’s giving up. I mean, if you don’t have an education, you just can’t make it in this world.”

“Education is really important.”

“Oh, yeah! I mean, if you don’t have a diploma, if you can’t get jobs or go to college, what are you going to do? You’ve just got to get an education.”

“It’s important to your future.”

“It is. And… you know what? I’m really worried. Listen, you won’t tell Mom, will you?”

“You don’t want your mother to find out.”

“Well, not really. Oh, I guess you can tell her. She’ll probably find out anyway. Look, I took this test today, this reading test. And, Dad, they said I’m reading on a fourth-grade level. Fourth grade! And I’m a junior in high school!”


What a difference real understanding can make! All the well-meaning advice in the world won’t amount to a hill of beans if we’re not even addressing the real problem. And we’ll never get to the problem if we’re so caught up in our own autobiography, our own paradigms, that we don’t take off our glasses long enough to see the world from another point of view.


“I’m going to flunk, Dad. I guess I figure if I’m going to flunk, I might as well quit. But I don’t want to quit.”

“You feel torn. You’re in the middle of a dilemma.”

“What do you think I should do, Dad?”


By seeking first to understand, this father has just turned a transactional opportunity into a transformational opportunity. Instead of interacting on a surface, get-the-job-done level of communication, he has created a situation in which he can now have transforming impact, not only on his son but also on the relationship. By setting aside his own autobiography and really seeking to understand, he has made a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account and has empowered his son to open, layer upon layer, and to get to the real issue.

Now father and son are on the same side of the table looking at the problem, instead of on opposite sides looking across at each other. The son is opening his father’s autobiography and asking for advice.

Even as the father begins to counsel, however, he needs to be sensitive to his son’s communication. As long as the response is logical, the father can effectively ask questions and give counsel. But the moment the response becomes emotional, he needs to go back to empathic listening.


“Well, I can see some things you might want to consider.”

“Like what, Dad?”

“Like getting some special help with your reading. Maybe they have some kind of tutoring program over at the tech school.”

“I’ve already checked into that. It takes two nights and all day Saturday. That would take so much time!”

Sensing emotion in that reply, the father moves back to empathy.

“That’s too much of a price to pay.”

“Besides, Dad, I told the sixth graders I’d be their coach.”

“You don’t want to let them down.”

“But I’ll tell you this, Dad. If I really thought that tutoring course would help, I’d be down there every night. I’d get someone else to coach those kids.”

“You really want the help, but you doubt if the course will make a difference.”

“Do you think it would, Dad?”


The son is once more open and logical. He’s opening his father’s autobiography again. Now the father has another opportunity to influence and transform.

There are times when transformation requires no outside counsel. Often when people are really given the chance to open up, they unravel their own problems and the solutions become clear to them in the process.

At other times, they really need additional perspective and help. The key is to genuinely seek the welfare of the individual, to listen with empathy, to let the person get to the problem and the solution at his own pace and time. Layer upon layer—it’s like peeling an onion until you get to the soft inner core.

When people are really hurting and you really listen with a pure desire to understand, you’ll be amazed how fast they will open up. They want to open up. Children desperately want to open up, even more to their parents than to their peers. And they will, if they feel their parents will love them unconditionally and will be faithful to them afterwards and not judge or ridicule them.

If you really seek to understand, without hypocrisy and without guile, there will be times when you will be literally stunned with the pure knowledge and understanding that will flow to you from another human being. It isn’t even always necessary to talk in order to empathize. In fact, sometimes words may just get in your way. That’s one very important reason why technique alone will not work. That kind of understanding transcends technique. Isolated technique only gets in the way.

I have gone through the skills of empathic listening because skill is an important part of any habit. We need to have the skills. But let me reiterate that the skills will not be effective unless they come from a sincere desire to understand. People resent any attempt to manipulate them. In fact, if you’re dealing with people you’re close to, it’s helpful to tell them what you’re doing.

“I read this book about listening and empathy and I thought about my relationship with you. I realized I haven’t listened to you like I should. But I want to. It’s hard for me. I may blow it at times, but I’m going to work at it. I really care about you and I want to understand. I hope you’ll help me.” Affirming your motive is a huge deposit.

But if you’re not sincere, I wouldn’t even try it. It may create an openness and a vulnerability that will later turn to your harm when a person discovers that you really didn’t care, you really didn’t want to listen, and he’s left open, exposed, and hurt. The technique, the tip of the iceberg, has to come out of the massive base of character underneath.

Now there are people who protest that empathic listening takes too much time. It may take a little more time initially but it saves so much time downstream. The most efficient thing you can do if you’re a doctor and want to prescribe a wise treatment is to make an accurate diagnosis. You can’t say, “I’m in too much of a hurry. I don’t have time to make a diagnosis. Just take this treatment.”


I remember writing one time in a room on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. There was a soft breeze blowing, and so I had opened two windows—one at the front and one at the side—to keep the room cool. I had a number of papers laid out, chapter by chapter, on a large table.

Suddenly, the breeze started picking up and blowing my papers about. I remember the frantic sense of loss I felt because things were no longer in order, including unnumbered pages, and I began rushing around the room trying desperately to put them back. Finally, I realized it would be better to take ten seconds and close one of the windows.


Empathic listening takes time, but it doesn’t take anywhere near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you’re already miles down the road, to redo, to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems, to deal with the results of not giving people psychological air.

A discerning empathic listener can read what’s happening down deep fast, and can show such acceptance, such understanding, that other people feel safe to open up layer after layer until they get to that soft inner core where the problem really lies.

People want to be understood. And whatever investment of time it takes to do that will bring much greater returns of time as you work from an accurate understanding of the problems and issues and from the high Emotional Bank Account that results when a person feels deeply understood.

UNDERSTANDING AND PERCEPTION

As you learn to listen deeply to other people, you will discover tremendous differences in perception. You will also begin to appreciate the impact that these differences can have as people try to work together in interdependent situations.

You see the young woman; I see the old lady. And both of us can be right.

You may look at the world through spouse-centered glasses; I see it through the money-centered lens of economic concern.

You may be scripted in the abundance mentality; I may be scripted in the scarcity mentality.

You may approach problems from a highly visual, intuitive, holistic right brain paradigm; I may be very left brain, very sequential, analytical, and verbal in my approach.

Our perceptions can be vastly different. And yet we both have lived with our paradigms for years, thinking they are “facts,” and questioning the character or the mental competence of anyone who can’t “see the facts.”

Now, with all our differences, we’re trying to work together—in a marriage, in a job, in a community service project—to manage resources and accomplish results. So how do we do it? How do we transcend the limits of our individual perceptions so that we can deeply communicate, so that we can cooperatively deal with the issues and come up with Win/Win solutions?

The answer is Habit 5. It’s the first step in the process of Win/Win. Even if (and especially when) the other person is not coming from that paradigm, seek first to understand.


This principle worked powerfully for one executive who shared with me the following experience:

“I was working with a small company that was in the process of negotiating a contract with a large national banking institution. This institution flew in their lawyers from San Francisco, their negotiator from Ohio, and presidents of two of their large banks to create an eight-person negotiating team. The company I worked with had decided to go for Win/Win or No Deal. They wanted to significantly increase the level of service and the cost, but they had been almost overwhelmed with the demands of this large financial institution.

“The president of our company sat across the negotiating table and told them, ‘We would like for you to write the contract the way you want it so that we can make sure we understand your needs and your concerns. We will respond to those needs and concerns. Then we can talk about pricing.’

“The members of the negotiating team were overwhelmed. They were astounded that they were going to have the opportunity to write the contract. They took three days to come up with the deal.

“When they presented it, the president said, ‘Now let’s make sure we understand what you want.’ And he went down the contract, rephrasing the content, reflecting the feeling, until he was sure and they were sure he understood what was important to them. ‘Yes. That’s right. No, that’s not exactly what we meant here… yes, you’ve got it now.’

“When he thoroughly understood their perspective, he proceeded to explain some concerns from his perspective… and they listened. They were ready to listen. They weren’t fighting for air. What had started out as a very formal, low-trust, almost hostile atmosphere had turned into a fertile environment for synergy.

“At the conclusion of the discussions, the members of the negotiating team basically said, ‘We want to work with you. We want to do this deal. Just let us know what the price is and we’ll sign.’”

THEN SEEK TO BE UNDERSTOOD

Seek first to understand… then to be understood. Knowing how to be understood is the other half of Habit 5, and is equally critical in reaching Win/Win solutions.

Earlier we defined maturity as the balance between courage and consideration. Seeking to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage. Win/Win requires a high degree of both. So it becomes important in interdependent situations for us to be understood.

The early Greeks had a magnificent philosophy which is embodied in three sequentially arranged words: ethos, pathos, and logos. I suggest these three words contain the essence of seeking first to understand and making effective presentations.

Ethos is your personal credibility, the faith people have in your integrity and competency. It’s the trust that you inspire, your Emotional Bank Account. Pathos is the empathic side—it’s the feeling. It means that you are in alignment with the emotional thrust of another person’s communication. Logos is the logic, the reasoning part of the presentation.

Notice the sequence: ethos, pathos, logos—your character, and your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation. This represents another major paradigm shift. Most people, in making presentations, go straight to the logos, the left brain logic, of their ideas. They try to convince other people of the validity of that logic without first taking ethos and pathos into consideration.


I had an acquaintance who was very frustrated because his boss was locked into what he felt was an unproductive leadership style.

“Why doesn’t he do anything?” he asked me. “I’ve talked to him about it, he’s aware of it, but he does nothing.”

“Well, why don’t you make an effective presentation?” I asked.

“I did,” was the reply.

“How do you define ‘effective’? Who do they send back to school when the salesman doesn’t sell—the buyer? Effective means it works; it means P/PC. Did you create the change you wanted? Did you build the relationship in the process? What were the results of your presentation?”

“I told you, he didn’t do anything. He wouldn’t listen.”

“Then make an effective presentation. You’ve got to empathize with his head. You’ve got to get into his frame of mind. You’ve got to make your point simply and visually and describe the alternative he is in favor of better than he can himself. That will take some homework. Are you willing to do that?”

“Why do I have to go through all that?” he asked.

“In other words, you want him to change his whole leadership style and you’re not willing to change your method of presentation?”

“I guess so,” he replied.

“Well, then,” I said, “just smile about it and learn to live with it.”

“I can’t live with it,” he said. “It compromises my integrity.”

“Okay, then get to work on an effective presentation. That’s in your Circle of Influence.”

In the end, he wouldn’t do it. The investment seemed too great.


Another acquaintance, a university professor, was willing to pay the price. He approached me one day and said, “Stephen, I can’t get to first base in getting the funding I need for my research because my research is really not in the mainstream of this department’s interests.”

After discussing his situation at some length, I suggested that he develop an effective presentation using ethos, pathos, and logos. “I know you’re sincere and the research you want to do would bring great benefits. Describe the alternative they are in favor of better than they can themselves. Show that you understand them in depth. Then carefully explain the logic behind your request.”

“Well, I’ll try,” he said.

“Do you want to practice with me?” I asked. He was willing, and so we dress rehearsed his approach.

When he went in to make his presentation, he started by saying, “Now let me see if I first understand what your objectives are, and what your concerns are about this presentation and my recommendation.”

He took the time to do it slowly, gradually. In the middle of his presentation, demonstrating his depth of understanding and respect for their point of view, a senior professor turned to another professor, nodded, turned back to him, and said, “You’ve got your money.”


When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important, contextually—in the context of a deep understanding of other people’s paradigms and concerns—you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas.

You’re not wrapped up in your “own thing,” delivering grandiose rhetoric from a soapbox. You really understand. What you’re presenting may even be different from what you had originally thought because in your effort to understand, you learned.

Habit 5 lifts you to greater accuracy, greater integrity, in your presentations. And people know that. They know you’re presenting the ideas that you genuinely believe, taking all known facts and perceptions into consideration, which will benefit everyone.

ONE ON ONE

Habit 5 is powerful because it is right in the middle of your Circle of Influence. Many factors in interdependent situations are in your Circle of Concern—problems, disagreements, circumstances, other people’s behavior. And if you focus your energies out there, you deplete them with little positive results.

But you can always seek first to understand. That’s something that’s within your control. And as you do that, as you focus on your Circle of Influence, you really, deeply understand other people. You have accurate information to work with, you get to the heart of matters quickly, you build Emotional Bank Accounts, and you give people the psychological air they need so you can work together effectively.

It’s the inside-out approach. And as you do it, watch what happens to your Circle of Influence. Because you really listen, you become influenceable. And being influenceable is the key to influencing others. Your circle begins to expand. You increase your ability to influence many of the things in your Circle of Concern.

And watch what happens to you. The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them. To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.

Habit 5 is something you can practice right now. The next time you communicate with anyone, you can put aside your own autobiography and genuinely seek to understand. Even when people don’t want to open up about their problems, you can be empathic. You can sense their hearts, you can sense the hurt, and you can respond, “You seem down today.” They may say nothing. That’s all right. You’ve shown understanding and respect.

Don’t push; be patient; be respectful. People don’t have to open up verbally before you can empathize. You can empathize all the time with their behavior. You can be discerning, sensitive, and aware and you can live outside your autobiography when that is needed.

And if you’re highly proactive, you can create opportunities to do preventive work. You don’t have to wait until your son or daughter has a problem with school or you have your next business negotiation to seek first to understand.

Spend time with your children now, one on one. Listen to them; understand them. Look at your home, at school life, at the challenges and the problems they’re facing, through their eyes. Build the Emotional Bank Account. Give them air.

Go out with your spouse on a regular basis. Have dinner or do something together you both enjoy. Listen to each other; seek to understand. See life through each other’s eyes.

My daily time with Sandra is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. As well as seeking to understand each other, we often take time to actually practice empathic listening skills to help us in communicating with our children.

We often share our different perceptions of the situation, and we role-play more effective approaches to difficult interpersonal family problems.

I may act as if I am a son or daughter requesting a special privilege even though I haven’t fulfilled a basic family responsibility, and Sandra plays herself.

We interact back and forth and try to visualize the situation in a very real way so that we can train ourselves to be consistent in modeling and teaching correct principles to our children. Some of our most helpful role-plays come from redoing a past difficult or stressful scene in which one of us “blew it.”

The time you invest to deeply understand the people you love brings tremendous dividends in open communication. Many of the problems that plague families and marriages simply don’t have time to fester and develop. The communication becomes so open that potential problems can be nipped in the bud. And there are great reserves of trust in the Emotional Bank Account to handle the problems that do arise.

In business, you can set up one-on-one time with your employees. Listen to them, understand them. Set up human resource accounting or stakeholder information systems in your business to get honest, accurate feedback at every level: from customers, suppliers, and employees. Make the human element as important as the financial or the technical element. You save tremendous amounts of time, energy, and money when you tap into the human resources of a business at every level. When you listen, you learn. And you also give the people who work for you and with you psychological air. You inspire loyalty that goes well beyond the eight-to-five physical demands of the job.

Seek first to understand. Before the problems come up, before you try to evaluate and prescribe, before you try to present your own ideas—seek to understand. It’s a powerful habit of effective interdependence.

When we really, deeply understand each other, we open the door to creative solutions and third alternatives. Our differences are no longer stumbling blocks to communication and progress. Instead, they become the stepping stones to synergy.

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